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Transforming one’s formal or legal writing from the conventional style of using archaisms, legalese, and verbosity to plain English is not an easy shift. It is a shift that requires putting clients’ or community’s satisfaction above pleasing oneself. At last week’s Learned Writing: Sense & Nonsense, The Write House showed participants from various parts of the country how to transform their writing.

After introducing participants to its plain English movement on the opening day of the training Wednesday 26 October 2016, The Write House taught participants how to write to join the top 1% of the global legal profession.

Chinua Asuzu, Dean of The Write House, taught participants language skills and techniques to improve their documents. Mr Asuzu also showed participants how they can begin sentences with ‘and’, ‘because’ and ‘but’ for effects. Participants also learnt how to use bullets, italics, numbers, enumeration, tabulations, etc. to enhance clarity and readability. Mr Asuzu emphasized the importance of being clear, comprehensible, concise, cogent, and complete– what Mr Asuzu described as the 5 Cs of legal writing.

Learned Writing: Sense & Nonsense, a course on excellent legal writing, kicked off at Oriental Hotel Lagos yesterday Wednesday 26 October 2016. The 3-day program is one of the courses offered by The Write House.

This power-packed workshop was attended by lawyers from both private firms and public agencies. The course objectives include encouraging participants to join the Plain English movement in legal writing; phasing out the use of archaic words, legalese, and unnecessary Latin maxims from legal documents; teaching techniques of drafting concise letters and pleadings; instilling grammar, style, syntax and usage improvements that enhance persuasive power in legal writing; and teaching clarity in legal prose.

The participants, including our correspondent in Lagos, were giving a refresher course on how to use nouns and verbs effectively in drafting documents.

Clarity is an international association that promotes plain legal English. Founded in 1983, Clarity is a worldwide group of lawyers and others who advocate using plain language in place of legalese.

The Write House has joined Clarity International. As pioneers of the Plain-English movement in Nigeria, The Write House shares similar goals with Clarity International.

Both The Write House and Clarity International promote the use of good, clear English by the legal community. According to Clarity International in the maiden issue of its Clarity Journal, it hopes to achieve this aim by:

2. drafting legal documents in English that is both certain in meaning and easily understandable;

3. exchanging ideas and precedents, not to be followed slavishly but to give guidance in producing good written and spoken legal English; and

4. exerting a firm but reasonable influence on the style of legal English, with the hope of achieving change in fashion.

The Write House democratizes access to law by promoting plain English in legal communication and writing. The Write House has been doing this by exposing lawyers and others to international best practices in legal writing.

Before joining Clarity, The Write House was recently awarded global recognition by Global Legal English, the international organization behind Test of Legal English Skills (TOLES). This came after several years as the accredited representative in Nigeria of TOLES.

Nigerian lawyers can keep up with ongoing legal developments in the world by exposing themselves to best practices. That is why lawyers need to keep improving their professional skills. Some lawyers took that step recently when they participated in a brief-writing workshop organized in Lagos.

The workshop, Brief Writing Masterclass, was organized by The Write House. The 2-day training held 25-26 March 2015 at Sheraton Lagos. It attracted participants from various law firms across the country.

At the workshop, participants were trained to write winning briefs. Chinua Asuzu, The Write House Dean, facilitated the training. His book, Anatomy of a Brief, was the manual for the masterclass.

The participants reported that they were pleased with the training. Emeka Anolefo, a senior partner from Emeka Anolefo & Co, said the “training is a must for all lawyers. The book, Anatomy of a Brief, is loaded and rich. I feel satisfied being part of the class. I learnt so much. I hope to be [even] better after reading the book. Great class.”

At the end of the workshop, The Write House presented certificates to the participants.

The Write House is the acknowledged authority in Nigeria on legal-writing curriculum and pedagogy.